She reached the opposite corner and turned back to look for him one last time. He was already gone.
Sarah looked at her phone and kicked herself. She wasn’t in danger of being late for her appointment with Dr. Robin; she’d set the appointment back this week. Now she had an hour to kill. Not quite worth going back home at this point; if she did that, she might not feel like coming back out. Even after almost two years, the appointments were still as difficult as they were necessary. She didn’t like to admit it, but she knew she was benefiting from them.
Sarah walked over to Fifth Avenue and entered Central Park. A gust of wind blew around her, waving her coat open and scattering leaves along the pavement. Fall was well underway.
Near the entrance, she stopped to look at a gingko, now naked. A sea of fan-shaped leaves littered the ground under its trunk; the tree had shed all of its leaves overnight. Was it a coordinated surrender? A skill developed over time, to aid it in its famous resistance? It was one of the most ancient trees on Earth, one of the only types to survive the atomic bombing at Hiroshima. She marveled at its seasonal self-destruction, its control over its own desolation.
She walked past the kids’ favorite playground and found her usual bench across from it, under the oak tree. She liked to come here to read and be outside; the quaint playground was large enough to lose herself in. She noticed a young mom playing with a little boy inside the playground. The woman was in her late 20’s with long, beach-wavy, blond hair, which reminded Sarah of a surfer. Sarah was sure she had gotten sand in her tresses when playing with her son in the sandbox. She remembered those days fondly, and she felt a slight pang of jealousy as she had once also had so much hope, so much engagement with her life. The kids had needed her; Eric had needed her. Life had been so busy, so full. She’d taken it for granted that it would always feel that way. And now—
Sarah realized the woman was staring back at her. Embarrassed, she averted her gaze and sat down on the bench, setting her bag beside her, and wrapped herself tightly in her coat. She missed her kids now that they had recently started boarding school; the longing made her heart ache and her mind spin with unused energy. But they were coming back today. She had that to look forward to.
She reached into her bag. She always made sure to have a book with her, and that morning she had plucked one at random from her bookshelf on the way out: Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola. She couldn’t remember when she’d bought it, or why; she’d definitely never read it before. She looked at the back cover. Paris, late 1800s. Better than here.
She got a pen out of her bag, opened the book and began to read. She chewed the pen, pausing here and there to make a mark in the margin. Zola’s words took over and filled her mind; soon she barely heard the kids in the playground shrieking, the little toddlers fighting in the sandbox, the nannies chatting. She was lost in the world of the novel, in the dark streets of Paris, far off.
A stroller bumped her as it rushed past, breaking her concentration. Startled, she glanced up at the young mom from before. Sarah nodded at her but the mom seemed upset. She was yelling into her phone at someone, completely ignoring her golden-haired toddler as he cried over a skinned knee. Sarah felt badly for the little boy and had the urge to sweep him into her arms. The woman glared at Sarah as if she wanted to say something. Stunned, Sarah looked away and went back to her book.
The sun’s warmth reached her, and she relaxed into the bench and continued reading. The story engrossed her fully, so she did not realize how much time had passed since she had first settled into the bench. It seemed like minutes, but when she looked at her phone she realized that she had been in the park for an hour. Where did the time go? Abruptly, the air went cold as a shadow loomed over her.
She looked up with a start. There was a man standing in front of her, smiling warmly. He was dressed casually in a plaid shirt, gray jacket, and jeans. He was attractive, she thought at once—actually remarkably handsome.
“Thérèse Raquin,” he said, his voice dark, deep, and friendly. “Zola. A great writer, flawed in many ways, but good.”
Sarah looked up at the stranger. He was tall, at least 6′2″. His face was calming somehow familiar. Did she know him? Surely she’d never seen him before; she would have remembered.
“I’m sorry?” she said.
“I recognized the cover of your book. I have the same copy. Zola was so ahead of his time. All that passion, just pent up. Did you know that his wife had an illegitimate child? And he had an affair with his seamstress.”
“No, I can’t say that I knew that.” Sarah’s mouth felt very dry.
“Do you mind if I sit?” He pointed at the bench next to her.
“I was actually just leaving.” The words spilled out of her and she closed the book, reaching for her bag. He backed up a step, his face conciliatory.
“Sorry, you must think I’m crazy just coming up to you like this,” he said. “It’s just, I love Zola, and not many people read the classics anymore. I’m Lawrence,” he said, stretching out his hand. The wide, warm smile spread further across his face.
Sarah took his hand. She felt a tingle shoot through her arm when he squeezed her hand, his palm was warm and rough. He was even more handsome up close, with deep, blue eyes—a stormy ocean, she thought. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken with someone new. Was he someone new? She had the strangest feeling she’d seen him or met him before. She realized the park was suddenly empty. It was just the two of them alone.
“Thérèse is an interesting character,” Lawrence said. “Victim and villain. You don’t know if you should love her or hate her.”
“I—I’m not there yet,” Sarah responded.
“You’ll see,” he said. “Obviously, she has a choice, but a marriage like that, where you hate the person—it’s like being in prison.” He checked himself. “Sorry. Sarah, I was just—”
“Wait, how do you know my name?” she asked. “Are you sure we haven’t met before?”
Lawrence smiled. “No, we haven’t,” he said. “It’s on your nameplate…there.” He reached across and touched her necklace chain. “It’s quite beautiful. It suits you.”
“It was a gift,” she said. What was she doing? At the edges of her consciousness, she felt the sky closing in on her, a heavy curtain waiting to drop. She felt the familiar, irrational panic. Run. Run.
Her grasping mind found a handhold. Dr. Robin. Her appointment. “I’m sorry, but I really do have to go. I have an appointment I’m going to be late for.”
“Too bad,” he said, the same sympathetic smile lighting his face. “It was very nice to meet you, Sarah. I’d be interested in knowing how you feel about Thérèse as you read on. Maybe we can have a Zola book club in the park?”
Sarah smiled and then said, “Maybe?” She stood up, straightening her coat. No more words came. Before he could respond, she turned and walked away. She hoped desperately that no one had been looking at her. Her face felt bright red. There had been a pleasant glitch in her routine, something she felt excited about. She was going to be late after all. There was no way she’d be telling Dr. Robin about this meeting—not today anyway.
It wasn’t until she was almost at her therapist’s office that she realized she had left her book on the bench.
CHAPTER 2
When there is no hope in the future, the present appears atrociously bitter.
THÉRÈSE RAQUIN
The receptionist didn’t recognize Sarah when she arrived. She never did. She always looked up her name, every single time, with the same blank expression. It was impossible to tell whether she was doing it consciously or not. Sarah sat and opened a magazine, kicking herself for leaving behind her book.
Sarah remembered Dr. Robin’s admonition: “Try not to use those words: ‘Always,’ ‘never,’ ‘you always,’ ‘you never.’ ‘Impossible.’ ‘Every time.’” They were so difficult to cut out of her vocabulary, those aggressive, brittle words. But the therapist was right, as always
. Non-violent communication was key to normalizing emotions, getting them under control.
Helena Robin seemed to have mastered that particular technique. She always seemed to deal with pain, suffering, chaos, and confusion as though they were entirely normal feelings, emotional experiences as ordinary as boredom or hunger. She was especially adept at defusing anger. Sarah wondered sometimes if she was even human.
“Don’t you just want to give up sometimes?” Sarah had once asked her. The calm, collected empathy of the therapist’s response had partly soothed, partly infuriated her. Now she only asked it in her mind, along with many other questions. Their relationship, though powerful in its depths of trust and openness, sometimes seemed a fragile shell that was up to Sarah to keep intact.
Dr. Robin had been referred to Sarah by her friend, Laura, back when Sarah had first started experiencing blackout periods and those awful nightmares. Sarah was reluctant, but she had to admit that the incidents were affecting everyone and everything in her life. Laura, who’d been to see the therapist for some kind of postpartum care, had strongly suggested that Sarah give Dr. Robin a try. To her surprise, when Sarah brought up the idea with Eric, he’d insisted on it.
Sarah looked around the spotless waiting area, unnerved by the perfect tidiness of the place. It always felt as if she was the doctor’s only patient, though she knew that wasn’t the case. She’d seen other men and women come through, anonymous figures who smiled apologetically or made halfhearted attempts to shield their faces as they hurried past. She’d been concerned in the beginning that the proximity of the office to her own home would lead to awkward run-ins, but fortunately she’d never seen anyone she recognized.
Dr. Robin, as her patient-friendly website pronounced, specialized in anxiety disorders and fears. Her “About Me” page featured a photo of the attractive, auburn-haired doctor, an appropriately inquisitive expression lighting up her hazel eyes, sitting on a bench somewhere. Underneath her bio were her credentials: M.D. from Cornell, specialization in Psychiatry; internship at Weill-Cornell Hospital in Manhattan; focused studies in psychobiology, the molecular basis of anxiety and psychotic disorders; background in clinical hypnotherapy. It all sounded very impressive to Sarah. But it was Dr. Robin’s open face that made her seem most accessible and trustworthy. She also didn’t have any social media accounts, which, though unusual, struck Sarah as vaguely healthy. She was on LinkedIn—but that wasn’t really social media. Sarah wondered about Dr. Robin’s friends and family but never asked.
“Dr. Robin uses hypnotherapy, in conjunction with traditional therapies, to help her patients transition to a new stage in their lives—one in which they feel empowered to overcome long-lasting fears and anxieties.”
That sounded just right for Sarah; when she read it, she realized she was willing to try anything to accomplish that particular transition. She wasn’t sure what the next stage would be, but a part of her life was most definitely over. Eric and the kids reminded her constantly of that.
The hypnosis sessions, as it turned out, were not at all what Sarah had imagined. She had pictured herself floating into a netherworld, like the first time she had smoked pot in her freshman year of college. That experience had been surprisingly blissful: an immersion into a quieter, more accepting place where everything needn’t be perfect. Sarah had loved it so much that it had terrified her, and she’d vowed never to do it again.
Hypnosis was different. The first time she’d walked into Dr. Robin’s office, she had not felt calm at all; she’d been on edge, as tense as ever. Dr. Robin had sat down and spoken to her in a silky, soothing voice:
“You don’t have anything to be afraid of, Sarah. We’re not going to do anything you haven’t done before in one way or another. Hypnosis is essentially a state of heightened focus and receptivity, with the critical mind in abeyance. During such a state, the subconscious mind is left a bit more open, a bit more receptive and suggestible. It’s perfectly natural—in fact, you go in and out of it many times a day. Think of that half-hour before you fall asleep and after you wake up: that’s a hypnotic state. You could think of it in terms of creativity, or freedom of thought—that hypnotic state right before you fall asleep is often when the most interesting ideas will occur to you.”
Sarah wasn’t sure what Dr. Robin meant at first. But after a session, she realized that hypnosis didn’t involve self-abandonment or paralysis or anything like that. It was just being in touch with herself on a deeper level, a level she didn’t always reach normally. During the sessions, she hardly knew she was under hypnosis; she felt entirely in control of herself and had to be assured by Dr. Robin that a change had even taken place.
She had been feeling better since coming to Dr. Robin. Now she attended regular sessions with the therapist and even almost looked forward to them sometimes. More than anything, the routine comforted her; it felt good to have the solidity of that schedule to rely upon. Still, the time leading up to each session was always fraught with anxiety.
Today was no better. The barrage of feelings aroused by the stranger in the park had subsided into a vague annoyance with her own lack of self-control. She couldn’t remember the last time someone showed interest in her. Surely it wouldn’t kill her to indulge the friendly overtures of a stranger once in a while, especially one so handsome. Judging from the wait, she certainly needn’t have hurried away so quickly on her therapist’s account.
“Dr. Robin will see you now,” the receptionist called out. As always, she said it without looking up. Rude. The aggressive word felt good, so she said it out loud.
“Rude.”
“What was that?” the receptionist asked, finally looking up to acknowledge her.
Sarah coughed, giggling to herself. “Nothing at all,” she smiled at the receptionist.
She entered the therapist’s empty office. She looked around the room. As with the ultra-clean waiting area, everything in Dr. Robin’s office was white—clean and crisp, like a clear mind. Only the windows offered any respite from the room’s starkness. The lack of photos or art had always made her nervous, though she understood the significance. It didn’t matter how many sessions she had: in this place, she always felt messy, as though her dark thoughts were visible blotches, or ragged encumbrances hanging off of her.
At least, that’s how she always felt at first. And it was probably part of the point; it kept her focused on those disorderly thoughts, on accepting them and letting them go. You are your mind; your mind is not you—the phrase had sounded like psychobabble when Dr. Robin had first mentioned it, but now Sarah often found herself returning to it, almost as a mantra. The repetition was soothing, a version of her own voice that grounded her rather than fighting her.
“Your inner voice should be a friend, not an enemy,” the doctor had told her. “You wouldn’t keep someone around you who was negative all the time, would you? Let’s find you a new inner friend.”
She relaxed into the soft white couch, bringing her breathing under control. She thought of calm places, of pleasant, clean things: the kids on the beach, little again, collecting shells; Eric with his surfboard, the saltwater in his hair. No one ever told you to hold onto those moments while they were happening; no one ever said how hard it would be to enjoy them once they were just memories.
You are your mind; your mind is not you.
“Hi there, Sarah,” Dr. Robin’s calm voice entered the room with her. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting.”
The therapist sat down in her chair across from Sarah, a journal in her lap. She looked kind and understanding as always, her hair smooth and impeccably pulled back. Her features had always struck Sarah as oddly aristocratic, even regal: a straight nose and proud chin to go with her upright posture. She wasn’t tall—much shorter than Sarah, in fact—but in the chair, sitting up as she did, she never failed to look bigger. Her clothes were always neutral-colored with some small accent of color. Today she wore a cream-colored skirt and jacket with a little bird pin in the lapel,
a robin, no doubt, with a ruby eye—a little quirkier than usual, but disarmingly cute nonetheless.
“You look better today, if I may say so,” she smiled. “Do you feel better than when I last saw you?”
“I guess so, a bit,” Sarah said diffidently. They always began their sessions this way, just talking, but this time felt different. She wasn’t ready to get into anything just yet. “I walked over. The fall air feels good.”
Sarah thought of Jason and Darcy, playing in the leaves. “The kids are home early tonight, too, so I’m looking forward to that.”
“Right—boarding school,” Dr. Robin said. “I remember you telling me you had some mixed feelings about that before. Does seeing them on the weekends make that any easier to deal with?”
“It can. It’s kind of a tradeoff, though. The rest of the time…I’m sometimes more down than I would be otherwise.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “It’s hard for me when they’re away. Harder than I expected it would be, really. But we—ah—well, he feels that it’s best for them. Eric does.” Her voice already sounded like somebody else’s, faraway and quiet. She looked down at her hands in her lap, at her chewed fingernails. I have to quit the bad habits, she thought. What other ones did she have?
“I see,” said Dr. Robin, “and what about you?”
“Me? I never really think about what I want.”
“Do you think it’s best for them? As you say Eric does?”
Sarah thought of the kids coming out of school with their backpacks and winter jackets, now so big. They seemed to change so much while they were away from her. She shrugged. “I guess so. It’s hard to say right now; I think I confuse it with how it makes me feel most of the time.”
“Which is?”
“Well, there are positives and negatives.”
“What would you say are the positives?”
“It definitely leaves me with a lot more time for myself.”
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